4-22-11
Justice, Proportionality Now In Judge Burns’ Hands
Who doesn’t wish that the clock could be turned back to the day before Good Friday 2010 and that Anthony Pacherille, then barely 16, had shared with a parent, relative or friend that he was reaching the end of what he could bear?Anthony’s father says the boy had undergone two years of intensive bullying in the halls and lunchroom of our revered Cooperstown Middle/High School, so intensive he had decided life was no longer worth living and, perhaps, that he would take one of his tormentors with him.
Pacherille’s father ticked off some names, who happen to belong to members of one of the CCS sports teams, and it may just be that Wesley Lippitt, 17, happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time that Friday afternoon in Cooper Park.
Other young people may have been able to withstand what Anthony could not, and it has been shown by now that the boy was struggling with a psychological malady, perhaps bi-polar disorder, which can manifest itself when the sufferer is in mid-teens.
Since then, we have learned many dismaying things about the Cooperstown community, as America’s Most Perfect Village sought to show we aren’t racist, we aren’t homophobic, we aren’t bullies – no, not us. Anthony was the perfect scapegoat, and we hung all of our community’s fears and sins on him.
It hasn’t been pretty.
But that was only part of the response.
Anthony’s father, Tony, has fearlessly and constantly argued his son’s case. Children, of course, take a parent’s love and commitment for granted, but his steadfastness has been exceptional and unstinting to those of us who know it’s not always so.
Likewise, our neighbors who knew Anthony best, his fellow parishioners at St. Mary’s “Our Lady of the Lake” Catholic Church, have prayed for him, lobbied for him, even placed “Save Anthony” signs on their many lawns throughout the village.
And loved the boy, too, as the open weeping of men and women alike indicated as Anthony entered a guilty plea Friday, April 29, that could bring him 11 years in a state prison.
How many pastors would have been as outspoken, determined and attentive to his lost sheep as Father John P. Rosson? Few enough, we venture to say.
We can be both frustrated by our community’s smugness and inspired by its caring.
•
From the beginning, it was evident that a humane solution for a troubled boy accused of a felony was not readily available in New York State’s justice system.Anthony, nine days from being 15 years old when the shooting occurred, has to be tried as an adult. The hate-crime allegations, the outgrowth of a rambling suicide note that was scary in parts and poignant in others, more than doubled the potential sentence to over 20 years.
On the one hand, if an insanity defense failed, a tender boy with no record would be injected into the belly of the beast, the state’s prison system, to fend for himself.
On the other, if he were released into a psychiatric hospital, a physician could determine in two weeks, or two months, or a year that, under treatment and medicated, Anthony could be released. Then, back home, he lets his medication lapse, and we’re right back where we started from.
The best answer, of course, would be confinement in a secure psychiatric facility with no release without a full vetting by a range of psychiatric specialists and county Judge Brian B. Burns’ approval, then intense supervision on the outside, perhaps with electronic monitoring, perhaps with the requirement that Anthony stay outside a 50-mile limit from the site of the crime.
When you watch Judge Burns preside, it’s hard not to be impressed by his respectful treatment of all concerned. He is a family man himself, with sons of his own about Anthony’s age. This cannot have been an easy case.
The final outcome of Anthony’s case – absent appeals, which Tony Pacherille says will occur – will be in Judge Burns’ hands at the July 22 sentencing. No doubt this case’s dilemmas have kept him awake nights.
Can he find that middle way? St. Mary’s and our other local congregations should now pray that he can, and the rest of us can only hope that he will. After all, this may be a matter of life or death. Can Anthony survive the next decade in a state prison?
Happily, Wes has survived the flesh wound he suffered and the lively, cheerful lad is no doubt looking forward to his senior year. This could have been a huge community tragedy, but it isn’t. It’s hard to argue that Anthony, already a year in Otsego County Jail, hasn’t been punished enough, (although psychological treatment and rigorous security is essential in any resolution.)
•
You may have seen Madame Nhu’s obituary in the New York Times the other day. A few years after her family was evacuated from Vietnam, her younger brother, angry at being disinherited, strangled both his parents to death. He was hospitalized, released seven years later and has been out of the public eye since.Every day, you can read similar articles suggesting Anthony’s prospective punishment is unduly harsh. Let’s believe, as this case moves to its conclusion, that justice and proportionality are possible.
4-22-11
Indian Hunter Meets The 21st Century
We’re not in Kansas anymore.
The announcement that Teamsters Local 693 is organizing the Village of Cooperstown employees is yet another wakeup call for professionalism in Village Hall.
Inadvertently, things started going in the wrong direction with the departure of Cooperstown’s last village manager in the early ’90s. At the time, experienced executives were in key positions, retired NYSHA president Wendell Tripp as mayor, and Giles Russell, retired IBM executive, took on some of the manager’s duties.
But there was no guarantee that management of that caliber would always be in place, and it shouldn’t have to be. The Village Board should be setting goals – intelligent, motivated, elected non-professionals from any walk of life can translate constituents’ wishes into priorities.
But a professional manager – trained, experienced in running a $5 million operation – is required to carry out the trustees’ wishes, to wend his or her way effectively through the often mundane details of municipal administration.
So here we are, with no pay scale, no annual review to hold employees to standards and offer enticements to excel, an outdated employees’ manual now under revision, oddities like longevity bonuses, an over-expensive health plan ... it goes on and on.
And here we are, with the Teamsters.
“We don’t really have contracts currently,” a surprised Trustee Lynne Mebust observed the other night when the news was announced.
“You will now,” replied Village Attorney Martin Tillapaugh, a bit ruefully.
The good news, such as it is, is that the Teamsters – tough, savvy, focused – will inject much-needed rigor into a lax operation, or else.
A letter writer argued recently that the professional who Village Hall hired to negotiate the contract with the Teamsters-represented police department was unneeded. We have bright people in the village who can pitch in, the letter said.
Sorry, Natty Bumppo, you aren’t in Muskrat Castle anymore.
First, the trustees must make sure the pieces are in place so taxpayers aren’t taken to the cleaners. Second, there needs to be a top-to-bottom review to determine and adopt the gold standard for municipal governance.
We can be the most-perfect village we aspire to be, but only if we act with prudence, firmness, consistency and vision.
The announcement that Teamsters Local 693 is organizing the Village of Cooperstown employees is yet another wakeup call for professionalism in Village Hall.
Inadvertently, things started going in the wrong direction with the departure of Cooperstown’s last village manager in the early ’90s. At the time, experienced executives were in key positions, retired NYSHA president Wendell Tripp as mayor, and Giles Russell, retired IBM executive, took on some of the manager’s duties.
But there was no guarantee that management of that caliber would always be in place, and it shouldn’t have to be. The Village Board should be setting goals – intelligent, motivated, elected non-professionals from any walk of life can translate constituents’ wishes into priorities.
But a professional manager – trained, experienced in running a $5 million operation – is required to carry out the trustees’ wishes, to wend his or her way effectively through the often mundane details of municipal administration.
So here we are, with no pay scale, no annual review to hold employees to standards and offer enticements to excel, an outdated employees’ manual now under revision, oddities like longevity bonuses, an over-expensive health plan ... it goes on and on.
And here we are, with the Teamsters.
“We don’t really have contracts currently,” a surprised Trustee Lynne Mebust observed the other night when the news was announced.
“You will now,” replied Village Attorney Martin Tillapaugh, a bit ruefully.
The good news, such as it is, is that the Teamsters – tough, savvy, focused – will inject much-needed rigor into a lax operation, or else.
A letter writer argued recently that the professional who Village Hall hired to negotiate the contract with the Teamsters-represented police department was unneeded. We have bright people in the village who can pitch in, the letter said.
Sorry, Natty Bumppo, you aren’t in Muskrat Castle anymore.
First, the trustees must make sure the pieces are in place so taxpayers aren’t taken to the cleaners. Second, there needs to be a top-to-bottom review to determine and adopt the gold standard for municipal governance.
We can be the most-perfect village we aspire to be, but only if we act with prudence, firmness, consistency and vision.
4-22-11
Instead Of Exulting, Bill Gates Says, ‘Focus On A Few Things’ |
| The Freeman’s Journal Village ZEO Tavis Austin departs after urging the Village Board to begin updating the Comprehensive Master Plan. But he’ll be back Monday, April 25. |
Mayor Joe Booan has a vision: Reduce expenses, identify unproductive surplus funds, and use that money to significantly improve the village’s infrastructure – streets, sidewalks, sewer lines, water lines (and pressure) – in just two budget cycles. He believes that can be done without a tax increase.
But elections have consequences, as George W. Bush observed on winning a second term in 2004.
With cool determination, senior trustees Lynne Mebust and Jeff Katz, now part of a new majority bloc on the Village Board, coolly dismantled Booan’s budget proposal, step by step, vote by vote, in a budget hearing Wednesday, April 13.
In the budget process, Mebust, the Madame Defarge of this new act – angry that Booan had used the mayor’s $1,800 discretionary fund for a mailing she considered political – simply had the fund erased.
Booan had a vision. The new bloc has the clout to do what it wants. But what’s the new vision? If not infrastructure, what? Absent that, must we resign ourselves to the grinding downward cycle we’ve experienced in the last decade?
If not a different vision, here’s one distinction that Katz and Mebust pointed out in separate interviews.
The unsuccessful Republican ticket allied with Booan prescribed spending as the problem. The pair see the problem as revenue generation, with the tourist trade the main opportunity. Neither wishes to revive the paid-parking conversation, yet, but perhaps there are other opportunities.
•
Interesting column in the Central New York Business Review the other week, “Strategic Planning in Turbulent Times.” It quoted Bill Gates: “My success, part of it certainly, is that I have focused in on a few things.” That’s what was encouraging about Booan’s proposed budget: He had concluded village infrastructure was “in crisis,” and crises – not a thought-out, well-funded plan – were preempting decisionmaking, “wagging the dog.” One “thing.”If the new bloc rejects Booan’s conclusion – “because we can” – fine. But it needs to focus in on a “few things” of its own. Perhaps redevelopment of downtown buildings’ upper stories, then strategies to return a variety of offerings to our Main Street.
Perhaps, with the National Baseball Hall of Fame dropping to 280,000 from a 410,000 high, tourism promotion. Perhaps the mini-hydro project on the Susquehanna. Perhaps modernizing the village’s technology, to make a full understanding of village finances available with a few key strokes. Perhaps...
•
As it happens, Tavis Austin, the zoning enforcement officer, has told the Village Board it’s time to update the Comprehensive Master Plan. Paths converge. Austin’s idea is for a committee, which he would chair, to lead the charge.But if we’re going to do it, let’s do it as best it can be done. At best, bubble-up, community-based planning would be the opportunity for the village, all of us together, to decide to pursue two, three or four “things.”
In 2000, a similar exercise, underwritten by the Clark Foundation, was conducted for the village and towns of Middlefield and Otsego. (Hartwick pulled out.) Community meetings were held, exercises conducted.
That the outcome wasn’t rigorously applied doesn’t matter. Done correctly, a community can emerge from the process with a more-or-less-unified way of thinking about problem-solving that informs future decisions.
The best processes result in “deliverables” – action steps. And there’s a fascinating Web site, www.communityplanning.net, that provides dozens – even hundreds – of ways to get at it.
•
Because of unhappiness with paid-parking, perhaps, Katz and Mebust were marginalized after the March 2010 election. Booan, because of a perhaps premature proposal to merge village police into the county Sheriff’s Department, now finds himself similarly cast into the outer darkness.As George W. Bush discovered when his hopes of privatizing Social Security faltered, victory is just the beginning. Locally, there was a new bloc two years ago, and a year ago, and now. Why not next year, too?
Let’s try to settle things down.
First, that exercise in power politics the other night was a little creepy. Don’t bludgeon Booan and the last of his team, Trustee Willis Monie. Reason with them.
Better, why shouldn’t the new bloc help the community, as a whole, decide on those “few things” to focus on? The process would be more fun, too.
4-1-11
No One Told Pentaris, Ulukaya It Couldn’t Happen Here
The chapter on post World War II in Milton M. Klein’s history, “The Empire State,” is titled “Top of the World,” and we were.
IBM was entering the computer age in Poughkeepsie and Endicott. GE was burgeoning in Schenectady and Syracuse. General Mills’ flour and Bethlehem Steel kept Buffalo flourishing. Likewise, Kodak in Rochester.
And it wasn’t just the big cities. In Elmira, there was Remington Rand. In Cortland, Smith Corona. In Sidney, Bendix. Amsterdam and Gloversville were the U.S. carpet capitals. Dairy flourished, providing fresh milk overnight to New York City and the Eastern Seaboard.
SUNY grew and grew. The state Thruway, mile by mile, spanned Tarrytown to Dunkirk. Kraft was everywhere. Fruit and vegetable farms flourished, from apples above Lake Champlain to cauliflower in Pierstown.
Today, we hear a lot of defeatism, confirmed by the latest Census figures, released last week, which would have had our Otsego County population dropping if not for 760 more students at Hartwick and SUNY Oneonta.
Mike Pentaris of Oneonta, raised in dire poverty on Cyprus, rescued D.M. Graham Labs in Hobart, guiding its sale to Mallinckrodt, then Tyco. Today, as Covidien, the local plant recently completed the largest methadone vault in the world, and is one of the largest two-county employers.
His challenge complete, Pentaris moved on a few years ago to Custom Electronics in Oneonta – he is now president – where he developed and spun off Ioxus, which makes ultracapacitors, a key component in electric cars and any efforts to upgrade the National Grid.
Meanwhile, Hamdi Ulukaya, a native of eastern Turkey and scion of a dairy and cheesemaking family there, took over Kraft’s former Phoenix Plant in South Edmeston, just across Unadilla Creek from Otsego County.
In 2005, he moved to Cooperstown – conveniently located between Phoenix and his feta-making plant in Johnstown (he now lives in Norwich) – and began manufacturing Greek-style yogurt with just six employees.
Today, he has 600 employees making Chobani yogurt, which is about to become the largest-selling such product in the United States. He expects to announce construction of a second plant – elsewhere, probably, given the 3 million gallons of milk required daily has tapped out the region – any day now.
The truth is, many of us are satisfied with the deteriorating status quo.
Another quick story: The Otsego County IDA had planned to raise a spec building just south of Richfield Springs. To do so required creating a water district. That, however, would have required strict accounting. and homeowners who had been illegally hooking into the main for the last half-century would have had to start paying. The project collapsed for that reason. Shame on us.
How many of us would have told Mike Pentaris that Graham Labs was finished? Or that ultracapacitors couldn’t be fabricated Upstate? Or told Hamdi Ulukaya dairying was finished here?
Thank goodness that, despite jingoism and zenophobia, immigration to the United States continues strong. Yankee ingenuity? Tapped out. Mediterranean ingenuity? That’s more like it.
Welcome, guys, and much continuing success. As for the rest of us, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves.”
3-25-11
There’s Much To Do, And Mayor’s Budget Starts Doing It
It’s been painful to hear Mayor Joe Booan labeled a “bully” during the recently ended Village Board campaign, because it simply isn’t true.
Since taking over the gavel last April, Booan has brought calm, patience and civility to the conduct of village business, as anyone who has sat through the monthly trustee meetings for the past five years can attest.
Previously, trustees were frequently interrupted and gaveled out of order if they raised points that disagreed with the ideas of the chair.
Audience members – often, the audience was packed with village employees in favor of one measure or another – were called upon and/or cut off according to views expressed.
Any political observer could have told Booan – and probably did – that it wasn’t a great idea to raise the emotional issue of contracting out police services at the beginning of a campaign – wait until after the election.
Booan’s reply is: His preliminary conversations with Sheriff Richard J. Devlin, Jr., had simply evolved to the point where it was time to go public. He wanted to be a straight shooter, and it was time for the public to know.
To say that exploratory conversations constitute “secrecy” likewise simply isn’t true.
“Our focus should be to put together a responsible budget that suspends growth in light of reduced revenues, poor economy, while prioritizing, planning and addressing a deteriorating infrastructure,” the mayor wrote in the budget message to his colleagues.
“Study of past budgets has indicated an attempt to come up with a short-term budget with long-term issues … It has created, today, a situation that can only be described as a crisis in infrastructure.
“We have lost the capacity to deal effectively with street repair, let alone any other infrastructure emergency. This has to be addressed now else we will lose our ability to control our future proactively.”
The budget keeps taxes steady, maintains “quality of life” programs – the parks department, youth programs, the Lakefront Concert series – and still puts aside enough for short-term street repairs and middle-term projects to bring village infrastructure up to par in two budget cycles.
In light of the March 15 village election results – all of Booan’s team succumbed – it would have been the easy course for the mayor to pull his punches. He hasn’t.
“The tail’s been wagging the dog,” he said, with collapsing streets and equipment wearing out determining budget priorities. “We have to get to the point where we can plan what our priorities will be.”
With an able street superintendent, Kurt Carman, now aboard, and able department heads at the water and sewer plants, is the DPW chief position still needed? (Besides, it’s time to start thinking again about a professional village manager.) Due to a damaged ACL, the police chief can’t patrol. Until she receives state disability and can retire, is an office-bound administrator needed to oversee six officers?
People of ill will will put all this in the worst light. But people of good will may also disagree, which is fine.
Let’s have a calm, patient and civil discussion, and come to an amicable consensus.
Cooperstown is a world destination. But with a half-million in renovations needed to Main Street’s pavement and sidewalks alone, are we a world-CLASS destination?
Right now, we aren’t. We should be. We can be. And Booan has presented one convincing plan to get there.
3-11-11
Oneonta Action Clarion Call For Community-Sensitive PolicingThe chapter on post World War II in Milton M. Klein’s history, “The Empire State,” is titled “Top of the World,” and we were.
IBM was entering the computer age in Poughkeepsie and Endicott. GE was burgeoning in Schenectady and Syracuse. General Mills’ flour and Bethlehem Steel kept Buffalo flourishing. Likewise, Kodak in Rochester.
And it wasn’t just the big cities. In Elmira, there was Remington Rand. In Cortland, Smith Corona. In Sidney, Bendix. Amsterdam and Gloversville were the U.S. carpet capitals. Dairy flourished, providing fresh milk overnight to New York City and the Eastern Seaboard.
SUNY grew and grew. The state Thruway, mile by mile, spanned Tarrytown to Dunkirk. Kraft was everywhere. Fruit and vegetable farms flourished, from apples above Lake Champlain to cauliflower in Pierstown.
Today, we hear a lot of defeatism, confirmed by the latest Census figures, released last week, which would have had our Otsego County population dropping if not for 760 more students at Hartwick and SUNY Oneonta.
•
Amid all this, two local men – recent immigrants both – have bucked the popular wisdom that Upstate New York is done.Mike Pentaris of Oneonta, raised in dire poverty on Cyprus, rescued D.M. Graham Labs in Hobart, guiding its sale to Mallinckrodt, then Tyco. Today, as Covidien, the local plant recently completed the largest methadone vault in the world, and is one of the largest two-county employers.
His challenge complete, Pentaris moved on a few years ago to Custom Electronics in Oneonta – he is now president – where he developed and spun off Ioxus, which makes ultracapacitors, a key component in electric cars and any efforts to upgrade the National Grid.
Meanwhile, Hamdi Ulukaya, a native of eastern Turkey and scion of a dairy and cheesemaking family there, took over Kraft’s former Phoenix Plant in South Edmeston, just across Unadilla Creek from Otsego County.
In 2005, he moved to Cooperstown – conveniently located between Phoenix and his feta-making plant in Johnstown (he now lives in Norwich) – and began manufacturing Greek-style yogurt with just six employees.
Today, he has 600 employees making Chobani yogurt, which is about to become the largest-selling such product in the United States. He expects to announce construction of a second plant – elsewhere, probably, given the 3 million gallons of milk required daily has tapped out the region – any day now.
•
What have the rest of us been missing? In our defeatism, we fail to recognize the opportunities around us. (Temple University founder Russell Conwell’s “Acres of Diamonds” speech comes to mind: Visiting Baghdad, he heard the story of Al Haphid, who traveled the world seeking diamonds only to eventually discover a diamond mine in his backyard.)The truth is, many of us are satisfied with the deteriorating status quo.
Another quick story: The Otsego County IDA had planned to raise a spec building just south of Richfield Springs. To do so required creating a water district. That, however, would have required strict accounting. and homeowners who had been illegally hooking into the main for the last half-century would have had to start paying. The project collapsed for that reason. Shame on us.
How many of us would have told Mike Pentaris that Graham Labs was finished? Or that ultracapacitors couldn’t be fabricated Upstate? Or told Hamdi Ulukaya dairying was finished here?
Thank goodness that, despite jingoism and zenophobia, immigration to the United States continues strong. Yankee ingenuity? Tapped out. Mediterranean ingenuity? That’s more like it.
Welcome, guys, and much continuing success. As for the rest of us, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves.”
3-25-11
There’s Much To Do, And Mayor’s Budget Starts Doing It
 |
| The Freeman’s Journal Mayor Booan examines Chestnut Street between the railroad tracks and the village line, where a lack of drainage tends to allow flooding. |
It’s been painful to hear Mayor Joe Booan labeled a “bully” during the recently ended Village Board campaign, because it simply isn’t true.
Since taking over the gavel last April, Booan has brought calm, patience and civility to the conduct of village business, as anyone who has sat through the monthly trustee meetings for the past five years can attest.
Previously, trustees were frequently interrupted and gaveled out of order if they raised points that disagreed with the ideas of the chair.
Audience members – often, the audience was packed with village employees in favor of one measure or another – were called upon and/or cut off according to views expressed.
Any political observer could have told Booan – and probably did – that it wasn’t a great idea to raise the emotional issue of contracting out police services at the beginning of a campaign – wait until after the election.
Booan’s reply is: His preliminary conversations with Sheriff Richard J. Devlin, Jr., had simply evolved to the point where it was time to go public. He wanted to be a straight shooter, and it was time for the public to know.
To say that exploratory conversations constitute “secrecy” likewise simply isn’t true.
•
To say that Booan isn’t a bully, however, isn’t to say that he isn’t determined. Quite the opposite, as is evident in the budget distributed to village trustees in recent days.“Our focus should be to put together a responsible budget that suspends growth in light of reduced revenues, poor economy, while prioritizing, planning and addressing a deteriorating infrastructure,” the mayor wrote in the budget message to his colleagues.
“Study of past budgets has indicated an attempt to come up with a short-term budget with long-term issues … It has created, today, a situation that can only be described as a crisis in infrastructure.
“We have lost the capacity to deal effectively with street repair, let alone any other infrastructure emergency. This has to be addressed now else we will lose our ability to control our future proactively.”
The budget keeps taxes steady, maintains “quality of life” programs – the parks department, youth programs, the Lakefront Concert series – and still puts aside enough for short-term street repairs and middle-term projects to bring village infrastructure up to par in two budget cycles.
In light of the March 15 village election results – all of Booan’s team succumbed – it would have been the easy course for the mayor to pull his punches. He hasn’t.
“The tail’s been wagging the dog,” he said, with collapsing streets and equipment wearing out determining budget priorities. “We have to get to the point where we can plan what our priorities will be.”
•
Elements of Booan’s budget – the elimination of superintendent of public works ($60,000, with benefits) and reduction of the police chief job (to 40 percent of $64,000, with benefits) – will likely be controversial.With an able street superintendent, Kurt Carman, now aboard, and able department heads at the water and sewer plants, is the DPW chief position still needed? (Besides, it’s time to start thinking again about a professional village manager.) Due to a damaged ACL, the police chief can’t patrol. Until she receives state disability and can retire, is an office-bound administrator needed to oversee six officers?
People of ill will will put all this in the worst light. But people of good will may also disagree, which is fine.
Let’s have a calm, patient and civil discussion, and come to an amicable consensus.
Cooperstown is a world destination. But with a half-million in renovations needed to Main Street’s pavement and sidewalks alone, are we a world-CLASS destination?
Right now, we aren’t. We should be. We can be. And Booan has presented one convincing plan to get there.
3-11-11
You’ve at least clicked past red-headed David Caruso as very brash and rude Lt. Horatio Caine on “CSI: Miami.”
The way he treats the public – everyone is a potential suspect – is astonishing, and you have to wonder what kind of influence that kind of depiction of a top detective must have on the cop on the beat, and youngsters who will be future cops on the beat.
Living in country towns as we do, we may look back nostalgically on “The Andy Griffith Show,” with the wise and cheerful country sheriff helping the townsfolk over various rough spots.
But the reality is that law enforcement in the United States has been evolving in a user-unfriendly way, even more so and more quickly since 9/11.
Some of this is truly a concern about public safety, some of it a heightened respect for due process, but as often as not it simply reflects an evolving paramilitary culture that refers to members of the public as “civilians.”
•
There have been multiple manifestations of that lately in our three major local police agencies, the Oneonta Police Department, Cooperstown village police and the Otsego County Sheriff’s Department.
Interviewees from the Oneonta Charter Revision Commission were quite astonished to discover that ranking officers felt they were largely independent of the “civilian” administration and authority.
The recent OPD record is peppered with situations that are questionable at least, from officers implicated in improper relations with underage girls, to the arrest of a mayoral candidate during a campaign, to a police campaign against a sitting city judge some considered too “liberal,” to the latest case, allegations of brutality during an arrest in January.
In Cooperstown, Police Chief Diana Nicols has bluntly declared her independence from Mayor Joe Booan, who was duly elected by a sizeable majority to the village’s top “civilian” position in March 2010. She is now suing the village and the mayor personally.
Nor did it help the police department’s standing when, after an officer with crossing-guard duties resigned, the crosswalk in front of the elementary school was left unmanned, without notice, requiring the elementary principal to scoot out and direct traffic as best she could.
County Sheriff Richard J. Devlin, Jr., didn’t have a particularly good 2010, removing the 16-year-old shooting suspect Tony Pacherille from his Bassett hospital bed before he was formally discharged, then denying the boy access to his priest for months before the state Commission on Correction intervened.
The other week, a widely admired Cooperstown resident, Hilda Wilcox, the respected SUNY Oneonta adult-ed instructor, read a statement to the Village Board describing rough treatment received from the undersheriff, then his deputy, when she called with a procedural inquiry. Did an officer really use strong language on this gentle lady?
Can it be true that, when an inmate’s term is up, he or she can be unceremoniously dumped outside the door of the county jail in Middlefield in the clothes they were admitted in, despite season or weather?
Redmond, Nicols and Devlin are undoubtedly good cops, or they wouldn’t have risen to the pinnacles of their departments. But are they good public servants? Are they, as they should be, community leaders who can think outside the law-enforcement silo about the good of our local society at large?
•
In this context, what transpired at Oneonta City Hall this week is quite astonishing, in a very promising way, for we “civilians.”
In the wake of January’s brutality charges, Mayor Dick Miller and Common Council brought in a retired state police internal affairs director to review, not just the one incident, but procedures, communications, morale, the chain of command – everything that makes a police department work, or not.
When Common Council received its first briefing Monday, March 7, Police Chief Joseph Redmond resigned. The mayor’s resulting statement suggested the chief, who is eligible for retirement, simply was unwilling to pursue the necessary cultural changes the investigation calls for.
Lt. Dennis Nayor was immediately made officer-in-charge, “reporting to the mayor and Common Council”; Miller’s statement makes it explicit. A temporary chief is being sought, and a search will be launched for an experienced professional, a process that could take 12 months.
Otsego County has not been well-served by its police agencies, which are expensive, clannish, insufficiently strategic and dismissive of the public that pays the salaries.
At best, the Oneonta situation should be cause for reflection on the part of Chief Nicols and Sheriff Devlin. Do they have a burning desire to truly serve their communities and county as a whole, or just parochial, airless law-enforcement prerogatives?
A good place to start: County Judge Brian Burns has declared heroin “the biggest problem in the next 10 years.” Where’s the plan? And it’s not sufficient to merely say it’s under investigation.
At the very least, immerse every officer in training on the central importance of community relations. It’s people, above all, that policing is all about.
Miller’s statement goes on: “The mayor and Common Council are committed to providing the community not with a good police department, but a great police department.”
We’ve seen police edge from Andy Griffith toward Lt. Horatio Caine, not just here, but nationwide. At a local society, we can’t control the nation, but we can make a difference between Unadilla and Cherry Valley, and Monticello and Worcester.
Do Chief Nicols and Sheriff Devlin have the capacity to be great? We believe so.
Close to retirement, Chief Redmond stepped back from the challenge. But Nicols and Devlin are young, energetic, with the best of their careers yet to come. Seize the day.
3-4-11
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| Freeman’s Journal file photo Then-trustee Milo V. Stewart, Jr., center, joins the 300 attendees Monday, Nov. 19, 2007, at CCS’ Sterling Auditorium, at what would soon become the Village of Cooperstown’s most contentious meeting in memory. Other members of the Village Board visible at left are, front to back, Jeff Katz, and now-retired trustees Paul Kuhn, Grace Kull and Eric Hage. |
It was among the most contentious meetings on 24/7 police coverage in the Village of Cooperstown.
On Monday, Oct. 19, 2009, Police Chief Diana Nicols had just combatively told the village trustees she had provided all the data she’d been asked to provide, and any effort to say otherwise was “C-Y-A,” adding, “I do not want to allow you to use mine to cover yours.”
At issue was $38,000 that had been removed from that year’s police budget, and Trustee Joe Booan had been singled out as the bad guy of the piece, even though that had happened before he had been elected.
The atmosphere was tense. After an executive session, which according to Nicols’ pending lawsuit against the village, was also testy, Booan calmly made a motion:
Allocate an extra $2,000 a month to the police department to allow 24/7 coverage through January, when Officer Jim Cox was to graduate from the police academy and could fill out the roster.
A rare unanimous vote in favor followed.
An argument over $38,000 had been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, at a $6,000 cost.
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If you had been a regular at village trustee meetings and a citizen of good will hoping to see people working together amicably and productively, you breathed a sigh of relief.Here, you would have said to yourself, is someone – Joe Booan – who can bring the Village Board together to begin moving our community forward in a calm, sure-footed way.
As with the 24/7 go-around, argumentation had been the order of the day for two years by then – well before Booan’s arrival on the political scene – peaking Monday, Nov. 19, 2007.
That evening, 300 people packed CCS’ Sterling Auditorium to debate what had become an uber-emotional issue: Paid parking. Despite all but a few of the 49 speakers opposing the idea, the Village Board, at evening’s end, voted 4-2 to go forward anyhow.
The four votes were former trustees Paul Kuhn and Grace Kull, and still-serving trustees Jeff Katz and Lynne Mebust. (Katz is now up for reelection.)
At the time and in retrospect, it was a mistake to take that vote that night. It was interpreted as trustee arrogance in the face of public opinion. As a community, we’ve been trying to heal the wounds ever since, to rebuild the trust lost.
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It’s a symptom of the state of the community that, in some quarters, Mayor Booan is considered part of the problem. Not so, as would be evident to anyone who attends trustee meetings regularly.He conducts the sessions with tact and consideration for trustees, staff and attendees. Likewise, it doesn’t take long to figure out which trustees are routinely playing political games, using every issue as a wedge.
From noon to 9 p.m. Tuesday, March 15, we have a chance to get beyond that, to fill the board with trustees committed to honest debate, to erasing the rifts through open-minded discussion and accomplishment.
It’s tempting to simply endorse the Republican slate. In addition to appointed trustees Matt Schuermann and Jim Potts – both serving ably from the get-go – there’s Phil Lewis, president of Leatherstocking Cooperative Insurance Co., and Joan White, one of Cooperstown’s true grand dames, an elegant and community-minded mother, grandmother and, yes, she’ll admit it, great-grandmother to a number of our fellow citizens. For a long period, she was also a downtown merchant.
Schuermann, mortgage specialist and proprietor of the Leatherstocking Group, and Potts, a vice president of New York Central Mutual in Edmeston, also bring engaging personalities and professional accomplishment to the table.
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But if GOP Village Chairman Mike Trosset is to be commended for that slate, Democratic Chairman Richie Abbate has also put together a commendable ticket.In particular, Ellen Tillapaugh Kuch stands out. A native who returned with husband Gary Kuch, the former CCS principal, to raise their family here, she has long been a mainstay of the local League of Women Voters chapter, a pioneering Rotarian (one of the local club’s first women presidents) and a level-headed participant in many aspects of community life.
Walter Franck, chief of medicine at Bassett Hospital for two decades, now co-director of the fledgling medical school, is also quite a catch. It goes without saying that he wouldn’t have endured in Bassett’s highest counsels without diplomacy wedded to knowledge.
Cooperstown voters couldn’t lose by voting for Potts, Schuermann or Tillapaugh for the two three-year vacancies. Likewise, Lewis or Franck present a win-win for the one two-year vacancy.
For the one-year term, Jim Dean, master craftsman and environmentalist, is a personal favorite. In particular, the community owes him a vote of thanks for his role in keeping Brookwood Garden accessible to the public and his outspoken opposition to fracking.
But Dean would tell you himself he has strong opinions and is unafraid to express them, darn the torpedoes. Another time, he would be an excellent candidate (and would fill a Planning Board or ZBA seat superbly.) But given where village governance is right now, we say Joan White for the one-year term.
Agree? Disagree? Express Your View
Here are The Freeman’s Journal endorsements of trustee candidates in the Village of Cooperstown election. (Polls open noon-9 p.m. Tuesday, March 15.)
• For the two three-year terms: Jim Potts, Ellen Tillapaugh Kuch or Matt Schuermann
• For the one two-year term: Walter Franck or Phil Lewis
• For the one one-year term: Joan White
This is our opinion. However, there’s time for you to express alternate views in the edition of Thursday, March 10.
All letters received before noon Tuesday, March 8, will be printed in the edition of Thursday, March 10, the last edition before the election.
E-mail them to jimk@allotsego.com, mail to P.O. Box 890, Cooperstown, NY 13326; or drop them off at 21 Railroad Ave.
2-25-11
A disinterested Cooperstown observer noted the other day about Oneonta Mayor Dick Miller, “Why are they picking on him? He’s just trying to do something.”
The context was the furor – now calmed a bit – over “Oneonta, Life Enjoyed,” the brand developed to help City Hall market the “City of the Hills” to a wider geographical audience.
At base, the brand is serviceable to the purpose. Nothing to get excited about.
It’s an interesting time to cover the mayors of Otsego County’s biggest communities, Miller in Oneonta and Joe Booan in Cooperstown. Both are “trying to do something.” (Fellas, here’s a tip: Doing nothing’s a lot safer.)
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In Cooperstown, Booan is proposing – here’s a hot potato – contracting with the county Sheriff’s Department for 24/7 police coverage, allowing the dissolution of village police.The mayor points out that village police costs about $500,000 a year. That’s $555 a year for each of Cooperstown’s 900 households.
In preliminary conversations, Booan and Sheriff Richard J. Devlin, Jr., have concluded deputies could provide the coverage for half the cost.
Two things are probably true.
First, with state police, Devlin’s force, Encon police, SUNY police, and city and village police, even the Oneonta Jobs Corps’ traffic-control duties, we are likely paying for much more policing than we need.
Two, there is no overall law-enforcement plan for Otsego County.
Such a plan could define the optimum force, deploy it more efficiently and eliminate expensive duplication.
Regardless, village residents no doubt find it a little scarey to exchange a police force they “control” for one overseen by someone from Milford who may not share the priorities of those living between Walnut Street and Lake Front Park.
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Mayor Booan originally was hoping to get this resolved in time for this year’s village budget, but that seems unlikely, given the need to line up the county Board of Representatives, build support on the Village Board and sell the idea to the public, which must vote on dissolution.Better to wait a year and do it right.
Outside Utica, the Town of Whitestown and villages of New York Mills, Oriskany, Whitesboro and Yorkville have applied for a $50,000 General Efficiency Planning Grant from the state Department of State to study the idea.
Money’s available, even in these tough times, because Governor Cuomo, as did his predecessors, sees there’s money to be saved. Let’s get the grant, get a professional to study the pros and cons, then act on the merits.
Once a single merger can be successfully achieved, others will follow. A greater Cooperstown that includes the towns of Otsego and Middlefield, and maybe Hartwick. A greater Oneonta, town and city together, as Mayor Miller is encouraging. Perhaps one county school district with local elementary schools and 2-3 high schools.
There’s much to be done that needs to be done. Let’s get started.
Here’s Way To Resolve Nicols-Village Suit
It’s an awkward time to propose eliminating the village Police Department, what with Chief Diana Nicols suing the village and Mayor Joe Booan.Even if the issues are separate, which is likely the case, it makes a common-sense exploration seem political.
OK, so resolve it.
The chief has been seeking a disability retirement since injuring her ACL during martial-arts training three years ago now. The village has been neutral.
Nicols’ third disability hearing is coming up in March. Why shouldn’t Village Hall support the chief’s application in exchange for her dropping the suit and retiring?
She gets her disability, which the facts support. An expensive (albeit iffy) suit disappears.
And the issue of contracting out police services can move forward and be decided on the merits.
2-18-11
If County Board Conflicts Are Intolerable, There’s Ballot Box
Neither Sam Dubben or Jim Powers are unknown quantities to the Otsego County public at large. Both Republicans, Dubben is current chairman of the Otsego County Board of Representatives; he replaced Powers in that spot two years ago. The two have lengthy careers in elective office.
At least a year ago, Dubben disclosed he has signed a lease to allow natural-gas drilling on his Town of Middlefield farm.
Dubben this year appointed Powers to chair the county board’s Gas Advisory Committee.
In a subsequent conversation with Nicole Dillingham, Otsego 2000 president, Powers disclosed that his South New Berlin farm is among the properties the Unatego Area Landowners Association has assembled to strengthen its negotiating position for gas leases.
Powers further told Dillingham he favors gas drilling in Otsego County, and intends “to vote pro-drilling on all matters before the committee.”
On Feb. 7, Dillingham reviewed all this in a letter to Dubben advising him of the conversation. It urges him to reconsider the Powers appointment, and asks that the successor be – and be appointed by – someone who doesn’t stand to gain personally from gas drilling.
She further asked Dubben to seek legal advice from County Attorney Ellen Coccoma on how the county board’s Code of Ethics might apply in this case. And she asks the chairman to direct all county board members to disclose “any financial interest with respect to gas drilling in our county.”
It was a strong letter, and an excellent one.
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In Dubben’s case, he did disclose his conflict and, in public forums since then, at least has shown an understanding of public concern about gas drilling. And he’s conferring with Coccoma.
As for Powers, it should come as no surprise that he supports gas drilling; it would be a surprise if it were otherwise. He hadn’t disclosed the potential for personal gain, but now he has.
Whatever Coccoma’s finding, it would be nice to think that, going forward, individual representatives would recuse themselves from discussion and voting on issues that benefit them directly.
It can further be hoped that Powers – and all the county legislators – would be swayed by the facts as they emerge, rather than be locked in to a pro-drilling stance no matter what.
But, mostly significantly, there is a political dimension to this question. By expressing himself so forthrightly, Powers – if he wants to keep his seat; maybe he doesn’t – must believe that a majority of his constituents agree with him.
He may be right, but given that the town board in New Lisbon (adjacent to Powers’ second district) now consists of Democrats and one Green Party member, he may be wrong. Or perhaps public opinion is in transition.
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The anti-drilling groups may be right on the merits when it comes to the intrusive hydrofracking process – in this space, it’s been declared that they are – but unless they can provide a choice and convince a majority of their fellow citizens that they are right indeed, they will not win the day.
At least, they won’t win the day through the county Board of Representatives.
2-4-11
If Catholics Support It, St. Mary’s Can Be Saved. And Should
Near the end of “True Grit,” the Oscar-nominated movie now showing at the Southside Mall Cinemas, Mattie Ross arrives at “The Cole Younger & Frank James Wild West Show” for a hoped-for reunion with Rooster Cogburn after 30 years.
Cole Younger stands respectfully, hat in hand: “It grieves me to tell you that you have missed Rooster. He passed away, what, three days ago, when the show was in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Buried him there in the confederate cemetery ... What was the nature of your acquaintance?”
“I knew the marshal long ago. We too had lively times,” she answers. “Thank you, Mr. Younger.”
Then she turns to Frank James, who’s been sitting the whole time, staring at her and chewing tobacco.
“Keep your seat, trash,” she says, and turns on her heel and walks away.
Cole Younger stands respectfully, hat in hand: “It grieves me to tell you that you have missed Rooster. He passed away, what, three days ago, when the show was in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Buried him there in the confederate cemetery ... What was the nature of your acquaintance?”
“I knew the marshal long ago. We too had lively times,” she answers. “Thank you, Mr. Younger.”
Then she turns to Frank James, who’s been sitting the whole time, staring at her and chewing tobacco.
“Keep your seat, trash,” she says, and turns on her heel and walks away.
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These days, of course, with the much-decried coarsening of American society, we routinely accept behavior unthinkable a generation or two ago.
The opposite – respect for elders, a given in civilized societies – emerged in interviews with the parents, teachers and alumni as one of the virtues espoused at St. Mary’s School in Oneonta, which is threatened with closing unless it can raise its enrollment from 50 to 70 students.
Alex Shields, the former county representative from Richfield Springs who was raised in Oneonta, recalls spending a day with a friend at public school. When a teacher entered the classroom, young Alex leaped to his feet and said, “Good morning,” a routine sign of respect at St. Mary’s.
All these years later, Alex still remembers his surprise that all the other students kept their seats.
Kitty (Signor) Townsend, a St. Mary’s grad who later returned as a teacher, remembers how, when she and her sister, Joanne, would go into the kitchen for a snack, her grandmother, who was living with the Signors on Franklin Street, would turn the TV channel to the Mets.
When the girls would return, they wouldn’t dream of switching the channel back. (In the end, their parents got a small TV for grandmom, and everyone was happy.)
The opposite – respect for elders, a given in civilized societies – emerged in interviews with the parents, teachers and alumni as one of the virtues espoused at St. Mary’s School in Oneonta, which is threatened with closing unless it can raise its enrollment from 50 to 70 students.
Alex Shields, the former county representative from Richfield Springs who was raised in Oneonta, recalls spending a day with a friend at public school. When a teacher entered the classroom, young Alex leaped to his feet and said, “Good morning,” a routine sign of respect at St. Mary’s.
All these years later, Alex still remembers his surprise that all the other students kept their seats.
Kitty (Signor) Townsend, a St. Mary’s grad who later returned as a teacher, remembers how, when she and her sister, Joanne, would go into the kitchen for a snack, her grandmother, who was living with the Signors on Franklin Street, would turn the TV channel to the Mets.
When the girls would return, they wouldn’t dream of switching the channel back. (In the end, their parents got a small TV for grandmom, and everyone was happy.)
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In the hall outside “True Grit” the other night was a contingent of St. Mary’s parents, spreading the word about what their children’s school has to offer.
“St. Mary’s is not just a school, it is a joy,” said Dawn Schuman, who was there with husband Eric and their 5-year-old twin daughters, Simone and Sabonne. “Kids run into school; they cry when there’s a snow day.”
The parents talked about “myths” regarding Catholic school, including that students don’t have to be Catholic – the facility on Route 7 east of Oneonta is open to all.
Certainly, there’s a secular interest in educational diversity – an economic-development one – not just in the case of St. Mary’s but the other Christian schools, Brookwood, the Montessori school in Toddsville, as well as the best public schools we can afford.
The lack of a Jewish school has been known to discourage some folks from moving here. The more educational options our two-county community can offer, the better.
“St. Mary’s is not just a school, it is a joy,” said Dawn Schuman, who was there with husband Eric and their 5-year-old twin daughters, Simone and Sabonne. “Kids run into school; they cry when there’s a snow day.”
The parents talked about “myths” regarding Catholic school, including that students don’t have to be Catholic – the facility on Route 7 east of Oneonta is open to all.
Certainly, there’s a secular interest in educational diversity – an economic-development one – not just in the case of St. Mary’s but the other Christian schools, Brookwood, the Montessori school in Toddsville, as well as the best public schools we can afford.
The lack of a Jewish school has been known to discourage some folks from moving here. The more educational options our two-county community can offer, the better.
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Still, the burden of St. Mary’s success lies with Otsego and Delaware county Catholics.
Since St. Mary’s has a sizeable endowment – from, among others, the late attorney Albert Farone, the largest Wilber Bank stockholder at the time of his death – the challenge isn’t financial.
With 12 Catholic parishes in the two counties, each has to come up with less than two students each for St. Mary’s to achieve its target for survival. There certainly is a role here for salesmanship on the part of the pastors.
(St. Thomas in Cherry Valley and St. Joseph in Richfield Springs might tilt more toward the Mohawk Valley, but St. Mary’s “Our Lady of the Lake” in Cooperstown must have a half-dozen families in its devout congregation that would be drawn to St. Mary’s School.)
Further, that the Catholic Sacred Heart Home Schoolers, which counts 50 students in its ranks, is prayerfully considering whether to join ranks with St. Mary’s, is excellent news.
At the diocesan level, the “Covenant to Educate” initiative has contracted with an advertising agency and a broad-gauged campaign is planned to tell the Catholic school story.
Certainly, a parochial school education isn’t right for everyone. That said, judging from how enthusiastic participating parents are with what’s being offered, St. Mary’s in Oneonta is filling an important educational niche.
Any parent interested in learning more should call Principal Patricia Bliss at 432-1450. Also, an open house is planned shortly. If you think St. Mary’s might be right for your children, plan to attend.
Since St. Mary’s has a sizeable endowment – from, among others, the late attorney Albert Farone, the largest Wilber Bank stockholder at the time of his death – the challenge isn’t financial.
With 12 Catholic parishes in the two counties, each has to come up with less than two students each for St. Mary’s to achieve its target for survival. There certainly is a role here for salesmanship on the part of the pastors.
(St. Thomas in Cherry Valley and St. Joseph in Richfield Springs might tilt more toward the Mohawk Valley, but St. Mary’s “Our Lady of the Lake” in Cooperstown must have a half-dozen families in its devout congregation that would be drawn to St. Mary’s School.)
Further, that the Catholic Sacred Heart Home Schoolers, which counts 50 students in its ranks, is prayerfully considering whether to join ranks with St. Mary’s, is excellent news.
At the diocesan level, the “Covenant to Educate” initiative has contracted with an advertising agency and a broad-gauged campaign is planned to tell the Catholic school story.
Certainly, a parochial school education isn’t right for everyone. That said, judging from how enthusiastic participating parents are with what’s being offered, St. Mary’s in Oneonta is filling an important educational niche.
Any parent interested in learning more should call Principal Patricia Bliss at 432-1450. Also, an open house is planned shortly. If you think St. Mary’s might be right for your children, plan to attend.
1-21-11
Idling Law? No. Paid Parking? No. Shared Police? Maybe
There are a number of issues that have surfaced in the Village of Cooperstown in the past several days, each worthy of a separate editorial, which time and space disallow. Let’s try to touch on them all:
• Shared Police Service
Everyone gives lip service to shared services, but little action has resulted. Contracting with the Otsego County Sheriff’s Department for 24/7 coverage of the village is an intriguing idea, one Mayor Booan estimates could save $250,000 a year.
Particularly with Police Chief Diana Nicols’ lawsuit against the village, which promises to take much time and money to resolve, Teamsters’ representation of patrolmen, and the continuing rising cost, it makes sense to ask ourselves, How much aggravation is a police department worth?
• Anti-Idling Law
At 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 24, a public hearing is planned on a law to levy fines up to $250 on anyone who leaves a car idling for more than three minutes, (except in temperatures below 32.)
The impetus behind the law is commendable – with remote starters, SUVs can be observed idling for 20 minutes on hot summer’s days to allow air-conditioning to kick in before passengers get back in the car. That wastes fuel, and money, and pollutes the surroundings.
Still, with parking-enforcement officers already writing many hundreds of tickets each summer, how much more bad PR and aggravation do we need? If it’s a good idea, craft a public-information campaign to promote it. A new law is not a solution to everything; let us reason together.
• On-Street Paid Parking
That same evening is a public hearing on repealing a law on the books allowing paid parking on Main and Pioneer streets. Hearts must be sinking across the village that the contentious debate that led to paid parking in Doubleday Field may be revived.
The concern may be that, as long as the law is on the books, a simple majority of trustees can expand paid parking and, with what promises to be a highly contested election coming up in March, we could wake up one morning with a done deal.
The revenues are attractive, but how completely do we want to barricade ourselves from our downtown during the summer months? And are we using a perceived quick fix as a substitute for a comprehensive approach to community development?
Paid parking should not be expanded without a full-bodied debate. Repeal the part of the law allowing paid parking on Main and Pioneer.
• Parking Adjustments
Also that evening, a public hearing is planned on adding a couple dozen 15-minute parking spaces downtown, and adding paid parking to the Lake Street parking lot at Lake Front Park. Again, let’s let it lie for a while.
Particularly counter-productive would be expanding the Doubleday Field hours from 9-5 to 9-9, meaning Cooperstown Hawkeye fans would have to pay for parking. If anything, the trustees should consider opening up the Doubleday lot to free parking at 4 p.m. on game nights. At the very least, do no harm.
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At base, there is no community consensus on what Cooperstown ought to be. A world-class tourist attraction? A medical mecca? A friendly, comfortable and affordable place to live and work? A retirement community? A hub of Web-based enterprise? However, there are narrower consensuses (yes, that’s a word): Fix the roads. No paid parking. That’s something to work with.
1-14-11
It Turns Out We Can’t Depend On Cuomo’s Business Initiative
It sounded great.
Governor Cuomo would create 10 business-development zones statewide. Each would develop a strategic plan and propose projects based on that plan. The projects would then compete for a $200 million pot of state economic-development money.
Initially, yes, it sounded great, since now, to get state funding, every local business-development initiative has to go to Albany, then to a skyscraper on Third Avenue, to compete with every other project in the state.
Too cumbersome. Too diffuse. Plus, if Otsego County has a big fish on the line, the top-down process ensures it will end up on the line of a more populous, more politically connected area before it’s pulled into the boat.
So Cuomo’s plan sounded great. We could put together a geographic package that made sense – say, Otsego, Delaware, Schoharie and Chenango counties. The strategic plan could tightly focus on common interests.
A few million dollars could make the difference in putting together a world-class commerce park along I-88, creating jobs-of-the-future easily accessible to people from Norwich to Cooperstown to Cobleskill.
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That’s right, Andrew, build us up just to let us down.When the 10 business-development regions were unveiled the other day, they proved useless to the Greater Cooperstown/Oneonta area. Otsego County was lumped in with the Mohawk Valley. Delaware is a the tail-end of the Binghamton region.
Can’t you see it: We can spend the next 18 months developing a strategic plan that identifies redeveloping Griffiss Air Force Base as the top priority of “our region.”
Useless. Except for our Route 20 towns, the Mohawk Valley’s fate is not ours. Ditto with Delaware County and Binghamton.
What would really be regrettable is if Cuomo’s concept also holds captive “The Power of SUNY,” the university system’s parallel economic-development initiative. (It’s “six big ideas” are “SUNY and the Entrepreneurial Century, the Seamless Education Pipeline, a Healthier New York, an Energy-Smart New York, the Vibrant Community and, finally, the World.”)
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But wait a minute. Let’s not despair (again).Why can’t Greater Cooperstown/Oneonta develop its own community-based strategic plan? Include Norwich and Cobleskill, for sure, but let’s be clear: Our interests as a community center on Oneonta and its colleges, plus SUNY Delhi; Otsego Lake and the Clark Foundation entities, and Bassett Healthcare.
Let’s hope and expect people like Bassett’s Bill Streck, SUNY Oneonta’s Nancy Kleniewski and state Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, who have the clout to bring together Greater Cooperstown/Oneonta’s key players to create the strategic plan, will do so.
Let’s decide on our priorities. Let make our plans. Let’s identified priority projects. Let’s make them compelling. And then let’s sell those plans -- again, with the people like Streck, Kleniewski, Seward and, heavens, Jane Forbes Clark -- to the Southern Tier and Mohawk Valley regional councils.
Let’s make those plans so compelling that the counties of Otsego, Delaware, Chenango and Schoharie will apply their bonding capacity to making them happen, regardless of what Cuomo and SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher conclude at the macro level.
Let’s not leave our local fate to the whims of others. No one cares like we do. Let’s plan, decide and act on our own behalf.
1-7-11
In 2011, Let’s Start Working With SUNY On ‘New Economy’
The high hopes for Governor Spitzer exploded. Governor Paterson’s strong start soon foundered. After two years of the troubling Great Recession, the state now faces a $10 billion deficit.
So while every New Yorker should try to be optimistic about Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s prospects, we’ve witnessed how difficult it is going to be to return our state to “Empire” status, wish as we might.
In his New Year’s Day inaugural speech, the new governor certainly captured the pain in describing “the taxpayers ... who are imprisoned in their homes because they can’t afford to pay the property taxes anymore, but the value of the home has dropped so low that they can’t afford to sell the house because they can’t pay off the mortgage.”
What’s a state to do? Cleaning up Albany? Long overdue. Right-sizing government? Sure; economic decline has made the investments of Nelson Rockefeller’s “Golden Age” unsustainable.
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A property-tax cap. Good. But, careful: You push in here and it comes out there, as educators observed Monday, Jan. 3, at the Otsego County Chamber’s annual State of the State Luncheon.With the Internet bubble bursting at the beginning of the last decade, the housing bubble bursting eight years later, and tepid economic growth in between, public pension funds stagnated.
Today, with baby boomers heading for retirement, school districts and localities are being required to make big hikes in local contributions during the worst economy in 80 years. Plus, the federal stimulus is expiring.
The state’s Wicks Law, which required $9,000 doors during the recent Cooperstown Central School renovation, has been allowed to lapse in New York City. Why not statewide?
School districts likewise can help themselves. But in the ONC BOCES, the only talk of mergers of our many tiny districts is between Stamford, Jefferson and South Kortright, one of many long overdue.
Certainly, there’s much more.
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One benefit of downturns is that they can force us to address painful choices easy to ignore when everything’s going fine. If the governor and state Legislature can make those choices, they will be heralded.At the luncheon, state Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, pointed out that Texas, Georgia and Florida, the fastest growing states, also have the lowest taxes and highest economic growth. The energy crisis of the 1970s, of course, was also a big contributor to Sun Belt prosperity.
Sure, let’s rationalize government. Let’s cut where we can. But we need a concept that is only now a’borning, evident in the SUNY Albany’s NanoTech Complex and Advanced Micro Devices’ $4.6 billion computer chip under construction in Malta, Saratoga County.
SUNY Oneonta President Nancy Kleniewski told the gathering, “In the next decade, economic revitalization is going to come from higher education.”
She’s exactly right. The question, locally, is how can we jump-start the process? We don’t need Cuomo or state government to intensify that conversation immediately.
